COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS: A 'Light & Lively' attitude

Life moves fast. With pressing career aspirations and life ambitions, I often find myself putting things like health on the back burner until "things slow down."

So I recently decided to drop into a fitness class at the Adorni Center. The Light & Lively class is a slow-paced aerobics workout designed for ages 50-80, whose bodies and joints require a gentler and lower-impact routine. Granted, I'm only 30, but I thought it would be a nice gentle ease back into an exercise routine.

I showed up for the Monday class and was greeted by a group of 10 women. I was nervous as to how they would take me, but to my relief everyone was very warm and inviting. These women were witty, charming and made me feel right at home.

They also shattered any stereotypes I had heard about low-impact exercise classes. Ten minutes in, my heart rate was up and I was wiping the brow of my forehead more times than I care to share.

The health benefits are obvious, but the real value of the class is what it does for the spirit. The camaraderie between these women is just as big a part of the class as the routines. The whole experience felt more like I was bantering with old friends, and we just happened to be exercising.

From what I'm told, Light & Lively has always been like this. A woman named Donna Summerson started the class over 20 years ago with a simple philosophy: "Health for body and mind is promoted through exercise, camaraderie and friendships."

Those who took the class back then describe Donna as energetic, full of humor, warmly personable, exceptionally capable and radiating with a desire to promote health and well being.

Donna passed away in 2006, but not before she asked if anyone were willing to train and take over for her. Class member Bonnie Mesinger, a retired teacher at Humboldt State University and active member of local theater, answered the call. Bonnie understood the value of the class, and was determined to continue the work Donna started.

To this day, Bonnie keeps Donna's original structure: warm up, aerobics, cool down, walk along the bay, stretching and strengthening. Bonnie does, however, contribute her own dynamic style to the instruction, including a continuous open-dialogue and engaging narrative on everything from informative specifics of what each movement does for the body, to random jokes, periodic check-ins and while I was there, a rare confession: "I ate an entire cake this weekend. I'm not proud."

Each of these women shares a unique bond in that they are "all suffering from the same aches and pains of age," as one member put it. They have supported one another through illnesses, surgeries and losses; some even go so far as to save physical places for members who are out with health issues until they can return.

When Bonnie had to temporarily step down from leading the class last year due to a back problem, the Light & Lively crew continued to show up to class for months until Bonnie returned, placing a boom box in front of the room and following a video tape of Bonnie instructing that she had made for them.

With career aspirations and life ambitions being a part of these women's pasts, they now share a common goal and drive: "We want to keep going," Bonnie says, "and we do!"

Life moves fast. It can become easy to take things like health, friendship and even fun for granted. There's a chance that things won't "slow down" until you no longer have a choice. You have to make the time.

If you want to make the most of that time, drop in on the Light & Lively class; they're an inspirational group of people who are sure to get your muscles moving -- particularly the ones that make you smile.